


Belling the Cat

by Maldoror_Chant



Series: Duty and Bloodshed: The CP9 Series [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Blood, Killers killing, Lots of it, M/M, aka CP9, twisted view of Peace and Justice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 13:56:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12367179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maldoror_Chant/pseuds/Maldoror_Chant
Summary: No man is an island, though he can be a distant peninsula reachable only at low tides and otherwise surrounded by shoals, riptides and sharks.





	Belling the Cat

The last tremors of pleasure faded, leaving warmth and a lack of tension in their wake. Lucci pulled away from the other man, wiping the mess from his fingers on a corner of Kaku's sheets. A stray lock of hair fell into his eyes as he stretched; he shook it away, sat up and reached for his fallen clothes in a pile on the carpet near the headboard. Now...now he had to go get those mission orders into some kind of, ironically enough, order. But sleep first, he decided. The night was still young, but it'd be a shame to waste the afterglow on paperwork. He'd get up at dawn and finish them over a pot of black coffee. 

Only iron-sure reflexes kept him from jumping when the hand touched his back, palm barely resting on the sacrum below his lowest scar. Lucci frowned and glanced over his shoulder, but couldn't see Kaku from that angle. He was as sure as a man could ever be that his teammate wouldn't stab him in the back, but he hated being touched from behind. It came with the job.

"What." 

"Are you ever going to let me top?"

The question was unexpected, and yet not. Kaku had been angling towards it for a few weeks now, indirectly. Lucci had simply ignored the delicate hints. At this rate, he'd not thought Kaku would ever stop pussyfooting around the matter. 

He stood up as he pulled on his pants. The belt clinked. "Why should I?" 

"Change of pace?" Kaku's edge of irony suggested he already knew it wouldn't be that easy. He was still on his stomach where Lucci had left him, chin propped on one wrist, other hand fallen onto the sheet when Lucci had moved, watching from the corner of his eye as the latter turned away and pulled on his shirt. 

A tug freed his hair from the collar. A sleepy Hattori rousted from the back of a nearby chair and settled on his shoulder, a familiar feather-weight. "I'm going to bed. Meet me in the cafeteria at seven. We'll go over the maps of Santanna."

"Right," said Kaku. The word was loaded, but Lucci had already opened the door. "Sleep tight."

By the time Lucci was halfway to his room, Kaku's question had been filed away; not forgotten, since it concerned a fellow agent and the young man Lucci worked with and unwound with, but not important enough to really remember either.

 

The change was so gradual, it was lost at first in the violent constants of their lives.

The swish-hammer-thud of two Rokushiki users trading blows rang throughout the entire courtyard, drawing Marines and agents from Cipher Pols One through Eight to hide around corners and gape in amazement. Lucci paused to watch from the second-floor colonnade running around three sides of the building, and wondered why Kaku had bothered picking up the gauntlet Jyabura was always tossing around. Five seconds observation gave him his answer: this wasn't a scuffle, it was training. In Kaku's mind, at least. Jyabura's smirk informed the world that whatever this was, he was damn well winning it. 

...And come to think of it, it had been three weeks now since Kaku had cajoled Lucci into giving him 'a workout'. Yet Lucci had observed his young teammate training even more than usual, by himself or with Blueno. 

Lucci cast his mind back on their last mission a fortnight ago. Kaku hadn't screwed up in any way Lucci had noticed. And Lucci being Lucci, he would have noticed. Not that someone should wait to screw up to do overtime training on his forms. But the mission itself had gone very smoothly. Kaku had been focused and efficient all the way to Santanna and back by fast gunship. Perhaps a little quieter than usual; he was never a chatterbox, but now that Lucci thought back on it, there had been no casual remarks during the return journey, no meandering discussions on the art of murder, no wry breaking of wit on the ineptitude of local authorities. On the plus side, Kaku had offered to do all the bureaucratic paperclip hunting and Lucci, who hated that aspect of their work, had agreed before his teammate could change his mind.

There was nothing wrong per se; there could be any number of explanations for each detail which barely stood out as it were. Yet, watching Kaku dodge an ugly little 'Jyabura Special' roundhouse, Lucci had the feeling something was off. 

Spandam was taking his sweet time deciding where best to next apply their deadly abilities. Having nothing better to do as a result, Lucci shifted his grip on the books he'd borrowed from the library, walked around the colonnade and down to the yard in time to see his two colleagues break apart. Kaku fell back, panting, hands braced against his thighs. A bead of sweat clung for dear life from his long nose. He was still beneath Jyabura's level, but he was only two months shy of eighteen and improving fast. Jyabura had better wipe that self-satisfied smirk off his mug and get ready for some real competition one day, if Lucci was any judge. 

"Not bad, mountain monkey. At least you-" Jyabura spotted Lucci. The flicker of challenge was expected; the undertones of immediate hostility were not. Jyabura only missed a beat and was even more bluff and bold as he near shouted, "At least you didn't spend all your time dodgin', and took those punches like a man. Your Tekkai's improved. You're growin', kid, you're doin' good, some of us have noticed that, you know." 

"Thank you. Oh, Lucci. Did that mission come in yet?"

"No."

"I'll drop by the steam baths, then. Thanks for the workout, Jyabura."

"Workout?" said the moron who must have thought it was a putdown match. "Oh yeah, man's gotta keep in shape." 

Jyabura's mouth was doing its usual fine job of making him sound like an idiot, but his eyes were sharp as they tracked Kaku's departure. Kaku passed by Lucci with a nod. The gesture was neutral. Polite. It felt off too, but Lucci knew he might be looking too hard now.

Jyabura headed towards the far corner of the courtyard, pulling at his collar to let some air down into his undoubtedly sweaty, smelly armpits. Lucci had already dismissed him from his attention. Jyabura was on the verge of returning the favor when he had one of those Jyabura Moments where his need to open his big mouth got the better of him. He did a one-eighty, marched across the beaten dirt and stopped in front of Lucci with a snarky look.

"So, what the hell did you do to Kaku?"

The question was unwelcome. Until now Lucci could have dismissed his intuition as the result of his mind getting a little overactive in the absence of a job to get to grips with, but if Jyabura had also noticed something was off, then it wasn't simply his imagination. 

Silence had never shut Jyabura up. "What? You so high and mighty you fuck even with the one friend you got? Maybe he's not as strong as you - or me of course," Jyabura added, arrogant and self-satisfied, before his expression changed like quicksilver back to one of hostility that was considerably more personal than the usual pissing contests Lucci never deigned to play. "But hell, my team ain't as strong as me either, and they drive me up the freakin' wall some days, but I treat 'em fair. I only give 'em shit when they deserve it, and if someone picks on them, I'm at the bastard's throat like _that_." Fingers snapped beneath Lucci's nose. 

Lucci ignored the gesture. "If Kaku has a problem, it has nothing to do with me and even less to do with you."

Jyabura looked honestly shocked. "You're joking." 

"No, Jyabura, you're enough of a joke for the both of us," Lucci said dismissively, eyes beneath sooty lashes tracking a lanky form heading towards the building housing the baths.

"You want a piece of me?!" Jyabura snapped, as predictable as pushing a button. "Damn me if I get how Kaku ever put up with you at all! 'Got no problem', has he? Yeah, right, smart guy, if there's nothing wrong with him, then why the fuck is he- I don't know, why is he treating you like you're Spandam or something, huh?"

Which is when Lucci saw it. 

The weeks that would follow would bear their quota of irritations, but for Lucci the crowning moment came right at the start, when he was still struggling to grasp what was wrong with his teammate and it was Jyabura, of all people, who figured it out and told him.

 

 

Lucci closed his book with the neat precision with which he killed people and looked up. Kaku was naked to the waist, rubbing his hair dry with a towel, a surprised look on his face beneath the fall of cloth. He'd not expected to see Lucci in the bathhouse's lounge, sitting in a pool of sunshine surrounded by cheerful dolphin mosaics and clean white tiles.

"Were you waiting for me?"

"Yes. I've been considering where we may be sent next. It's been ten days since our last mission without a word about the next, and I believe Director Spandam may be keeping us in reserve for something. My guess is that he's waiting for a firm order to send someone to Markesh."

His teammate stood there, not lounging against the dressing room wall with his hands in his pockets as he would ordinarily, and now that that bloody mutt had pointed it out, it was obvious in the way of dozens of tiny signs. Of course Kaku wasn't treating him like Spandam, that was an exaggeration, but there was something reminiscent of the neutral, obedient way Kaku behaved towards their director. 

"Markesh. That's the situation with the rebels? The ones who took over the old fort and who are rousing the rabble?"

Lucci nodded and waited, the perfectly imaginary mission he'd outlined extended like a litmus test.

He was hoping he was wrong. Or rather that Jyabura was moronically wrong, and that Lucci had simply let his imagination run away with him a little. Because he'd retraced the signs and portents back over the days and then the weeks since they could be said to have started, and either something very strange had gone down right at the start of their previous mission to Santanna three weeks ago and Lucci had failed to notice, or else this whole thing originated from Kaku's request a couple of nights prior to their departure. The 'change of pace'. Lucci was hoping he was wrong, because he did not want to think his teammate was that childish. 

Unfortunately he wasn't wrong. There were at least three obvious objections to Lucci's statement; Spandam wouldn't use his strongest weapon on some minor matter, there were other CP9 agents hanging around the Tower of Justice who were more apt to handling a mission of that level, and hell, even the Marines might be entrusted with this issue without making too much of a mess of it. Even during their very first mission together back when Kaku was barely sixteen, all legs and big wide eyes and awed respect, he'd never hesitated to voice an objection. Quietly, politely, but with an unexpected trace of backbone. It was what had led Lucci to notice the young agent back then as someone a little more interesting than the usual run of fresh meat the Academy sent them, quaking before him and in a hurry to obey any order to get out of his presence.

But today all Kaku said was, "I suppose it's possible. If you think we'll be sent there, shall I start gathering background information on Markesh?"

"You do that."

Kaku pulled on his t-shirt, popped his cap back onto his head and headed towards the door as if he just couldn't wait to obey those instructions. His hand was on the doorknob when Lucci said, "Just a moment."

"Yes?"

"I was talking with Jyabura earlier. Did you hit him in the head too hard?"

"Ah, no, not that I am aware of." If Kaku was surprised at Lucci's unusual - if not to say exceptional - concern for Jyabura's health, he didn't comment on it.

"Because he said something strange. His brains must be getting as lice-ridden as his fur. He thinks you're behaving towards me like you would Spandam." 

Kaku looked startled. "What? That's silly, of course I'm not."

"Silly..." Lucci wasn't surprised he'd deny it, but he was curious to hear how Kaku was going to explain the discrepancies in his behavior. And explain it he must; like two chess players, they were always several steps ahead of the game in any conversation, so however disaffected the remark, if Lucci had even mentioned it, Kaku would realize that this meant his teammate had noticed-

"You're my team-leader, naturally, but I respect you on a personal and professional level as well," Kaku continued. "I have to obey Director Spandam, but I'm afraid that the only thing I respect about him is the office he holds."

He seemed a little puzzled by the minutia of the scrutiny that followed.

"Team-leader."

"...Yes?"

"Why?" 

"Um, because you are?"

"What I am is considerably stronger and more experienced than you are, and that's about as official as we've ever bothered to get. You listen to me because you know what's good for you. Now suddenly I'm your superior officer? I wonder why?" Lucci asked silkily, ready to pounce. If this really was that topping thing-

"Ah, you see, Director Spandam reminded me rather forcefully the other day that I should respect the chain of command."

...The day they'd left for Santanna. Kaku had gone to get the final dispatches from Spandam. Lucci had been waiting for him in the refectory, grabbing a last eatable sandwich before making do with Marines rations during the trip, and he'd heard Fukurou babbling at the other table that Kaku was in the director's office right now getting a right royal dressing down over something. Lucci had paid the matter no mind at the time. Kaku could take care of himself. Lucci hadn't even considered this as a possible reason for Kaku's change of attitude; they'd all gotten used to filtering out anything Spandam said outside of orders on those days he spilled too much coffee on his crotch. 

It was tempting to conclude he'd made a mistake and just be thankful he'd not gotten around to accusing his teammate of giving him an elaborate form of cold shoulder, but Lucci's intuition stirred...Yes, it all made a lovely job of explaining what was going on and no doubt Spandam had said those very words, maybe even mentioned the familiarity between the two agents specifically. Even while he was aware that he had one of the strongest weapons on the face of the planet at his disposal, Spandam was often frustrated by the fact he couldn't actually brag about this, due to CP9's secrecy, as well as frequently a little envious of the directors of much larger agencies with rigidly observed hierarchies which made it abundantly clear who was boss. Behaving 'more militarily' was something he occasionally went on about, less these days as he got used to the power of the post. Still, it was quite plausible that he'd had a relapse...and Kaku, who was a trained manipulator, would have no problems getting their director to rant like that and even say exactly what Kaku wanted him to say with only a few subtle prompts, the verbal equivalent of getting a rather dimwitted bear to lumber through hoops while making it think it was its own idea.

But it was hard to call someone out on that. 

Lucci stared at the closed door to the bathhouse for a minute, before heading back to his room. Whether his intuition was right or not would be verified in the coming days, that much was certain.

 

 

Coincidentally, three hours after that conversation, Spandam did send them on the Markesh mission. There were what was termed in CP9 lingo to be 'complications'; that is to say, beyond settling the rebel leader's score, they had to take care of the island's governor in much less overt circumstances for having been a little bit too permissive with the revolutionaries. Lucci waited to see if a bit of action and bloodshed would defuse whatever was wrong with his teammate. It did not. On the contrary, now that it was out in the open, the process accelerated and then stabilized at what Lucci was starting to think of, with some unforeseen irritation, as 'a polite distance'. 

Kaku was a marvel of efficiency and deference, letting Lucci take out the targets and sticking to cleanup duty. He offered to follow through with CP8's routine interrogations of the rebels who'd been caught fleeing the death that had mysteriously struck down their leaders. Then once the governor was dealt with and they'd returned to Enies Lobby, Kaku compiled the confessions, cross-referenced the new data on the revolution for CP9's intel and filled in all the forms. He brought over a finished report to Lucci's room that very evening for his team-leader to sign, then smiled and nodded politely-

"I fail to see how this plan of yours is going to work."

Kaku paused near the door and looked back. "I beg your pardon?"

Lucci rested one arm along the chair's backrest and tilted his head, observing his teammate. His remark had been timed to stop Kaku in the fall of light from the standing lamp in the corner, he couldn't have a better view of the other man's expression if he shone a torchlight in his face. "Let me get this straight. Since you've suddenly decided to treat me like your team-leader, you've been training your Rokushiki almost continuously whenever you have some free time, you've been serious, attentive, dutiful, you've been extremely efficient, you don't attempt to engage in dialogue not related to work, you fill in the forms and do the chores and I'm sure that if I asked you to, you'd fetch me a cup of coffee."

"You want some coffee?" Kaku asked, gaze dropping to the glass of whisky dangling from Lucci's fingers. 

"You'd actually bring it, wouldn't you."

Kaku thumbed back the peak of his cap, expression willing beneath it. "I was going to work out some before turning in, but if you insist-"

"Didn't it occur to you that what you're doing is being the best kind of agent and teammate I could ask for?" Lucci interrupted, voice steely.

The long-nosed twit grinned, looking mightily pleased. "That's good to hear."

"Enough with the games. I want to hear you say why you think you're doing this." 

Kaku sounded puzzled. "Because it's my job? I'm sorry if I didn't previously fulfill your expectations of what a good agent should be. I'll do better in the future."

Lucci felt a flicker of disbelief that Kaku had actually gone and said that. It took a certain measure of ballsiness to look Lucci straight in the face - knowing that Lucci knew this was a ploy and that they both knew this - and say that. 

"Are we going to go the full nine yards over this stupidity?" he finally asked. "Are you going to start bringing me coffee, and saluting and calling me sir?"

And for a heartbeat, the real smile was back. Not the polite one; this was the smile that was too-new and too-old all at once, eerily serene in the face of slaughter. "'Sir'. Remember...? That's the first order you ever gave me, to stop calling you sir."

For an instant as brief and fragile as the touch of fingertips, it looked like Kaku had come to his senses and gone back to normal-

"I can't believe I was stupid enough to do that, even if I was a rank newbie at the time. Get into the habit of calling you 'sir' and I might have blown our cover sky-high with a slip of the tongue one day. So no, I'm afraid I won't be saluting or calling you sir or anything that might trip us up on the job, but if there's anything else you think I should be doing...?"

Lucci's emotions were powerful currents flowing under deep ice; he could feel them, but he did not let them move him, not unless it was in the direction he wanted. So feeling this unexpectedly pissed off over a minor matter was rare, but-...he couldn't say why, but Kaku shouldn't have said that. Using and trivializing the moment they'd met and been blooded for the first time, that was crossing a line, that was touching something, a memory between them that should have been left outside of whatever was wrong. And the way Kaku had smiled before saying that...it'd been five weeks since Lucci had seen that smile, and knowing this only fueled the anger. 

"Get out."

That earned him a respectful nod and then the door closed.

Lucci got to his feet and went to direct a narrow-eyed gaze out the window at nothing much (though a guard on night watch on a nearby rampart caught the look and snapped to attention so fast he gave himself whiplash). Hattori started to coo, then caught himself in a feathered hiccup and stayed silent on Lucci's shoulder instead. 

What the hell was this all about? It couldn't be about something as simple as who boned who. What did it matter? Lucci had gotten screwed before. Two or three times. By targets who tended to die shortly thereafter, but that wasn't the point. It was no big deal. Hell, playing the role of a pliant fuck was harder than the physical part. He could act well enough when he had to, but it wasn't his strongest suit, particularly when it was a question of acting weak. 

Of course, if it wasn't that big a deal, there should have been no reason for Lucci to refuse. He'd just felt no compunction to accept, either. Kaku could have begged and pleaded and negotiated; Lucci might have accepted to swap, eventually. Once. Given the boy a ride he'd always remember. It would have been entertaining, as would be Kaku's attempts to seduce him into a repeat. Instead, it seemed that Kaku had decided to force Lucci into compliance by being the perfect subordinate, which not only made no sense strategy-wise, but almost guaranteed Lucci would never contemplate-

A knock interrupted his thoughts, some minion by the sound of it. "Yes?"

"Sir?" It was one of the attendants. Carrying something that clinked and permeated the room with a familiar smell. "Kaku-san notified us that you wanted some coffee."

"Well played."

"I beg your pardon sir?"

"You're unwanted here," Lucci said without turning around or raising his voice. "Leave. Now." 

He paid no mind to the scrabble and slam of a door and the sound of a pot of coffee hitting the floor outside his room (it would be cleaned up before morning.) He watched his reflection in the windowpane lift a glass to its lips, the mirror image as close to him as Kaku had been that first time. A crash echoed in his memory...

\- The door had been kicked shut brutally; when Lucci opened it again half an hour later, it'd creaked...

As the wood still trembled with shock, Lucci held that lithe body against it, stilling the motion that had moved them there, overpowering with barely a thought as he leaned back and examined what he'd caught. The first kiss had been snatched in the darkness of a stairwell on the way up from the refectory; hard, harsh, it'd staked a claim, it'd made clear intent. It'd tasted sharp and sweet like lemon punch...but now all Lucci did was look. Eyes traveling up and down the barely-seventeen-year-old body, unblemished by scars beneath the uniform, new and appealing. It made Lucci feel old. And hungry. But he continued to look until a flicker of uncertainty shone in round eyes beneath the cap Lucci was going to rip off in a minute.

"Is this really what you want?" Lucci asked, voice pitched in a way that made 'no' unlikely, but leaving the kid some wiggle room if his courage had failed.

Roughed-up lips slightly parted, a little overwhelmed at what he'd unleashed, Kaku nonetheless nodded. Young. Eager. Unwise. But bright enough to realize Lucci had seen through the half-baked excuse, had seen through him all along. 

"Fine. One thing is going to be clear, though. No rough stuff. No power games."

From the look on Kaku's face, that had been the last thing he'd expected Rob Lucci to say. "Wh-"

"You'd lose."

"...Oh." It looked like Kaku did see that this was the unvarnished truth rather than a challenge. "What am I supposed to-" the young man caught himself and added, with an attempt to match Lucci's sardonic edge, "Do you expect me to lay there like a slab of meat?"

It'd been two years since Lucci had been with another agent, someone who wouldn't break when pushed, and he was sure he'd mentioned that at some point going up those stairs, right after the kiss and before the door had crashed shut. "There would really be no point to this if you do," he said, tore away the cap and moved in before they wasted more time with talking. Let Kaku figure out the line between being active and being stupid, and if he fucked up and got hurt, that was his outlook. Back then, a year ago give or take a month, Lucci hadn't cared either way. 

Lucci shook away the memory, finished his whiskey and wondered what Kaku's next move would be when he realized Lucci still had no interest in playing. 

 

It was Lucci who stopped the affair a couple of weeks later. Kaku never refused a roll in the sheets and showed every sign of enjoying it, but there was something missing...that appealing vein of resistance Lucci had taken for granted until it was gone. Kaku did everything Lucci asked, often with enthusiasm. Lucci couldn't understand why this grated above all. Then he began to suspect this was the way Kaku might have sex with a target, the whole idea being to please, putting aside one's preferences because in that context they didn't matter. Lucci had no way of knowing if this was the case, of course, but he found, as he looked down at the man panting in apparent satisfaction in his arms, that he had no taste even for the suspicion. 

He got up, got dressed and walked out without a word, as per usual, and with no intention of returning. The notion that Kaku wasn't getting all that much out of it anymore didn't bother Lucci a whit. He'd not been averse to taking what Kaku had so naively offered him last year, it wouldn't bother him to take it now under these conditions. But...

But this slow campaign might eventually compromise their teamwork, and Lucci found, as he walked back to his room, that he was not prepared to accept that risk. If sex was going to be a problem between them, they'd stop having it, and keep their relationship strictly professional. Kaku was an affable assassin by nature, a contradiction Lucci had grown somewhat used to, and he saw Lucci as a friend as well as a colleague. Their two-man unit was frequently isolated from their peers under harsh conditions, a remoteness that existed only in the shadow cast by the World Government's light. Under that sort of pressure, it was possible that Kaku might eventually go back to his regular behavior when he realized he wasn't going to win this one; that he had, in fact, lost even the little that had been there, and that some things were best accepted. And if he didn't come round...then Lucci would still have a good subordinate and the team's performance could only improve.

As for the sex, that was no great deal. Since they avoided dulling their edge in the middle of a mission, Lucci was used to weeks, even months of abstinence. And if he got tired of that, he could always adopt his previous solution-

\- "The brothel?" Kaku echoed, so clear in Lucci's memory he almost heard the words spoken from the darkness of the hallway.

"Yes. You disapprove?" Lucci asked sarcastically. His hand traced the muscles rippling down Kaku's long back, then up from the thighs...this kid had great legs. And a Rankyaku that could plough through concrete. Lucci approved. This was the third time they'd ended up in bed together, all within the space of six weeks. Lucci had the intuition this was going to become something of a habit, and had decided there was nothing wrong with that. He had observed his young teammate in the most strenuous circumstances known to man; this congenial killer with the bright, young smile and ardent enthusiasm for fighting was too well trained and disciplined to let some intimacy get in the way of his dedication. 

This was their second mission together as a team, rather than two agents grouped on the fly to adapt to particular circumstances. Years of killing in the shadows had imposed an array of interesting and sometimes highly unamusing roles on Lucci, but this time around his cover story had cast him as a rich merchant dealing in tobacco and dry goods, with Kaku posing as his personal secretary. The mission was over, the target dead - and buried in a bog to be thorough - and now they only had to maintain the illusion for a couple of days until they were clear of the island. Extracting themselves from the scene of one of their executions frequently saw them running for tireless days and nights, or stowing away in a cargo hold stinking of fish. Today's successful getaway had involved a suite of staterooms aboard a large cruiser, a personalized roost for a dozing Hattori provided by the discreet staff, and an excellent dinner of veal at the Captain's table followed by some aged port. The smell of fish was conspicuously absent.

Lucci cared nothing for the conditions in which he lived or traveled. They were inconsequential. But tonight, with two glasses of that port warming his blood, lying in his 'secretary's' comfortable four-poster, he decided to take his time and enjoy it. It wasn't the luxury of the surroundings that drew his hand to linger more than it usually did; it was the tableau of their two lethal bodies tangling in the sheets normally used by fat businessmen and their vapid wives. Two knives wrapped in silk. The violence of the contrast pleased him. 

Kaku's shoulders flexed as he rubbed his back against Lucci's palm like a cat prompting a distracted owner for more attention in the petting, please. Just for that, Lucci decided with twisted enjoyment, he was _really_ going to take his time... 

"You didn't answer me," he murmured. 

"Huh?" Kaku's eyes shuttered as Lucci's hand drifted down to the back of his knee; his teammate had a little sensitive spot there. "Oh, disapprove of- no, of course not. I suppose it's a reasonable-...uh, reasonable arrangement." He liked to be touched pretty much anywhere on the legs, it seemed. 

Kaku licked his lips and made an attempt at focusing. "It avoids issues of entanglements. With civilians. And...the regulations of fraternization between Cipher Pol agents working in the same unit." 

"There's a lot of regulations we have to ignore, starting with the one that says we need a warrant for arrests and should make all reasonable attempts to bring prisoners in alive for judgment," Lucci said dryly. "As for _that_ regulation, it was made for those who have no emotional control and a weak sense of duty. I don't think anybody would have the guts to apply it to us." He rolled over to cover the young body with his own. Kaku tilted his head, neck exposed. He liked to be touched there too, or bitten, or licked, depending on Lucci's mood, but whatever the mood it seemed Kaku was up for it.

The words 'that's good to know' had been muffled and lost in the pillow. Kaku turned his head when Lucci didn't do anything but rub against him. Slowly. 

"The thing is...The Lobby's brothel- I presume that's the one you, ah, patronize?"

"Yes." 

"That's what I thought. Government controlled, right? It's safe, secured, sanitary, utterly discreet," Kaku sounded like a tourist guide, and Lucci wondered who'd told him about the place. "It's got a drawback, though."

"Which is?" Lucci said against the skin beneath Kaku's ear, making the body beneath his shudder.

"Um, isn't that where Director Spandam goes?"

Lucci examined the long-nosed profile against the pillow. "It's where they all go." The upper echelon. Who, to a man - or woman - had both spouses and lovers, yet still seemed to need a little extra. 

"Yes, I suppose it's nice to know that no details ever leave its walls and they won't be shaken down later for their, ah, odder appetites," Kaku said. The knowledge in his eyes did not belong on seventeen-year-old features. They were the eyes of a spy and an assassin who knew a man was always at his weakest with his pants down. No doubt he knew all about their director's, 'ah, odder appetites' as he termed them; he'd have made it his duty to find out, same as they all did. "But you know, the thought would rather turn me off-" The words ended in a release of breath as Lucci left bite marks on his neck, trying to get that particular picture out of both their minds...

The click of a closing door locked out the memories. Lucci made his way towards the shower, absently lifting Hattori from his shoulder and letting him hop off of his master's fingers and onto his favorite spot, the bed's footboard. 

He and Kaku had been screwing for nearly a year now, ten and a half months exactly since that four-poster bed and that night which had stretched and lingered. It'd been awhile-...actually, now that he thought of it, Lucci hadn't slept with anyone else in all that time, bar a couple of mission-related instances. He had to fish through his memory to double-check; it wasn't something he kept track of. Lucci got more visceral satisfaction out of meting justice; sex was something that happened when he had the time for it and the desire. When he wanted it, he liked to have it available, and Kaku had certainly been convenient for that. 

Getting laid wasn't a problem in itself; there were always plenty of people around who'd gladly fall into his bed with a sort of fanatic blindness to Lucci's personality, for the sake of his looks or reputation. The way they acted, one would think that strength and distinction might stick to them like sweat and semen. But he had to be careful with them, they broke so easily, and Lucci had strict rules about injuring and killing outside of the job; that was a slippery slope. Screwing one of the weaklings around Enies Lobby would be no more fun than sleeping with a target. With Jyabura's shining example before him - the wolf Zoan's latest love affair was with the janitor's daughter and it was just painful to watch - Lucci was even less enthusiastic. 

As he stepped beneath the running water, he decided that abstinence wasn't such a bad idea after all. It might make him even meaner. Kaku might come around in a few months time...But Lucci would have to think long and hard before going back to their old arrangement now. It had wandered from a healthy release into more loaded territory. As for sexual urges, if they became too great then he'd make use of the brothel again. Fortunately, he and Spandam had _very_ different tastes. But Lucci still had the feeling that it'd take awhile before he got that hard up for it. 

 

 

The weeks passed like shadows, so did the assassinations. They spent Kaku's eighteenth birthday on board a trawler. Their three fellow fishermen threw him a party. They would be dead soon, sent down to Davy with their ship once the mission was finished, unavoidable collateral damage. Neither Lucci nor Kaku mentioned the day; it was an old non-joke in CP9 that agents didn't have birthdays, their existence and birth records erased from all registries so that they only had two dates left to them, the day they enlisted into the agency and the day they left it to join their predecessors in an unmarked grave. 

On their next job, Lucci slept with the wife of a target to get to the latter and to the contents of their concealed safe. Instead of taking the edge off, it only made him realize he didn't have that much of one. Documents in hand, he got more satisfaction out of their deaths, quick, silent and clean. 

He wondered briefly, on the train ride back, how Kaku was holding up. While Lucci was screwing the wife, his colleague had been on stakeout, and it'd rained continuously for the entire fortnight they'd spent on that spring-weather island. Kaku didn't look particularly put out. He must have realized by now that the nights of Lucci ending up in his bed for an hour or so were at an end. Lucci had expected some underhand jab or remark, Kaku's way of showing him that he didn't really care, but Kaku said nothing. It was apparently not his place to comment on where his team-leader decided to spend the night. Lucci had to admire the thoroughness of it all, in a cold, annoyed way. Then he put it out of his mind. 

A few days later, Hattori finally got the picture and stopped hopping over to Kaku's arm looking for company and bread crumbs. Pigeons might be good at navigating, but they didn't catch on very quickly. 

The other agents had already noticed, as rapidly or as slowly as their individual perspicacity allowed which, as a whole, was considerable; they were all killers to the bone, and that implied a good dose of situational awareness. Unlike Jyabura, none of the others were stupid enough to say anything, not even Fukurou. Since Kaku was pretty easy-going for a professional killer and Lucci was not, it was obvious who the others thought was to blame for the rift. Lucci didn't care. The dynamics of a small, tight-knit group with a high-pressure job eddied around him, covert glances, small hesitations when they addressed him, a little more respectful wariness than before as if he'd shown he couldn’t be tamed even by friendship, and that made him doubly dangerous. Lucci kept a careful eye on things, but the swirls of currents never got near the steel core that made them one of the most dangerous and effective weapons the government would ever have, so he saw no cause to interfere. 

Relations between the teammates had stabilized into a good working collaboration. Kaku was improving his skills daily without Lucci's help. Jyabura was his regular sparring partner now. Lucci heard from that big mouth Fukurou that the mangy mutt had offered to take Kaku into his team. Kaku had politely refused. 

Spandam was the last to notice; even Hattori had caught on faster. Their director's bold managerial decision was that Lucci should team up with someone more his level for awhile, someone he 'wouldn't have to carry'. He realized before he'd even finished that sentence that that could only mean Jyabura. He backpedaled so fast he almost tripped over his own tongue, and suggested he and Lucci discuss the matter further over some drinks at the officer's club as a peace offering. Lucci refused. He didn't bother to be particularly polite. Spandam was his superior and his orders were law, but beyond that he could go to hell. Spandam didn't mention breaking up the team again and seemed a little more nervous than usual around Lucci for awhile. 

And slowly, by degrees, between two murders and one act of theft of a diplomat's papers for blackmail purposes, Lucci started to see the whole matter differently. 

...He remembered how they'd started. They'd been on a few jobs before. They got along. For two ruthless men ever striving to be better killers, this was something of an achievement, one that the hierarchy had noted. Kaku's initial awe and respect, shared by those members of CP9 who weren’t loud idiots, had slowly been blended with a sort of curiosity...and envy, the healthy, ambitious kind, which was when Lucci had started sparring with him. This boy had more than enough potential to be worth Lucci's time, and would be a solid addition to CP9.

He had known the teenager had one of those burning, hormonal longings for him; it wasn't hard to figure out when Kaku would always find a reason to bolt out of the bathhouse whenever Lucci showed up, and would occasionally get a little distracted when they sparred - until Lucci reminded him the hard way that Kaku had to be stronger, better, harder than the rest of the human race. As for the crush, the kid would get over it. Or if he had the guts, he'd fall into Lucci's bed and get it out of his system. Either way Kaku would learn something valuable from the experience. 

Then Spandam had declared he'd had a brainwave, and that the two of them were now the main strike team; Kaku would be Lucci's backup, his innocent charm a handy cover, and Lucci could bring the younger agent up to his speed in the art of assassination. It was while they were prepping for their first mission as an officially sanctioned unit, gearing up for what would turn out to be a challenging, messy job on Sycamore Island, that Kaku had taken the plunge. 

Lucci had sat down in a corner of the refectory and ordered coffee. His brand new teammate had been sitting at another table, soft sandy curls poking out from beneath his cap, chin in his hand as he studied the folder full of details with the seriousness of a school boy boning up on his algebra. There'd been a glass of lemon punch at Kaku's elbow; most of the officers present were drinking the same in the warmth of Enies Lobby's ever-sunny days. The mild alcoholic content meant that the waiter should not have served it to a seventeen-year-old, but the staff's attitude seemed to be that they didn't earn enough money to say No to CP9 agents, even the younger ones. 

Lucci had felt but not reacted to the covert glances in his direction, studying his own material until his young teammate sat down on the bench across the table.

"This will be an interesting assignment," Kaku had said, nodding at Lucci's open file. 

"At least it'll be short," Lucci had answered. Short and deadly. The way he liked them. He'd gone on a six-month undercover mission two years ago, and though he'd do it again if ordered to, he didn't enjoy the feeling of going rusty with every passing minute. 

"I've been looking through the covers they suggest we adopt." Kaku tapped a highlighted paragraph. "If the mission outline goes as expected and I get close to the target's accountant, I might have to sleep with him. His profile says he swings that way."

"Yes."

"I know the theory, but I've not actually done that before. With another man. I should probably get some experience first."

At least the offer had been open-ended, something Lucci could have pretended to ignore if he so chose...Lucci finished the cup of strong coffee provided by a nervous waiter and said, "The first thing we'll need to hone is your come-ons." 

Kaku had mostly managed to hide his embarrassed wince. 

He'd been seventeen, barely, and though mature for his age as only a killer could be, he'd still been adventurous. Rash might be a better word. Lucci had been twenty-two, fully aware that this development might make it hard for the young man to work with him from now on, and hadn't given a damn. Kaku had been appealing, in that semi-innocent, enthusiastic way that reminded Lucci of some young animal trying out its fangs on a hunt for the first time, and he certainly had a good body to go with it. Lucci had taken what was offered and left his lover with no grounds for complaints. And if this had screwed up their brand-new team, too bad; there were always other agents to work with, and Rob Lucci never relied on anyone anyway. 

As the months edged towards a year, his teammate had passed the hurdles that might have tripped him up. And he'd matured, he who was already older than his years. That was why this sudden nonsense had seemed so puzzling. But it was sobering to think that Kaku would never approach Lucci with such a proposition nowadays, however disaffected, and Lucci would never have accepted. Their partnership- team, rather, partnership sounded too close, too exclusive, too equalitarian, but even just as a team, they were-...

-that time in Komora. Their fingers gummy with the target's blood- and then all the alarms had gone off like banshees screaming. They'd both spun around and burst through the nearest windows before the first ululation gave way to the next. They'd known the score. Komora's Royal Infantry were well-trained in their response. The killers had five minutes to get across the entire length of the fortified town to the pier or Lucci would find out how well a Zoan couldn't swim. Kaku ran beside him, taking out a guard without breaking a step before the man even looked up, fast and deadly as a shaft of dark lightning. They'd landed on the deck of their small sloop, the speed of their Soru as they hit the planks sending it sculling away with a few seconds to spare before the harbor chain was lifted. Kaku's sharp smile had been as bright and murderous as the searchlights fruitlessly sweeping the streets behind them. Lucci was busy thinking dark thoughts about intel's faulty blueprint on the security layout. It occurred to him now, as it had not fully occurred to him then, that he had not looked back once during those furious five minutes to see if Kaku was still behind him. He'd not have looked back for any other agent either, but in his teammate's case, it was because he knew Kaku would keep up.

Knowing what they did now, they would not have fallen into bed that first time. They'd developed an understanding this past year, it had grown so subtly it'd only been recognized when the recent friction had put it at risk. A team...In Lucci's opinion, Kaku wasn't quite darkened and damned enough for this job, but he had taken on himself to forge the kid into the weapon Kaku wanted to be anyway. For his part, Kaku obviously believed his senior had a couple of screws that weren't quite tightened, but that didn't stop him from learning and wanting and striving, following in Lucci's footsteps. And when they killed together...No, knowing what they did now, they would not have endangered a thing of such dark beauty and power over a round of sex. Even, admittedly, really good sex.

Which was why Lucci was starting to think that this wasn't an act. Not entirely. Maybe it had never been. Perhaps this was the way it should be between them, certainly the way Lucci kept everybody else, a natural result of their difference in strength. 

 

 

"Can you see them?" the target shouted out the window. His words turned instantly to frost, white as smoke in the vicious cold only a winter island could produce. "No?! What the hell are you lot doing, daydreaming?! I saw two of them waltz right over that ridge just a minute ago, and there are probably more coming from the other side-"

"No, just the two of us," Lucci informed him.

Lieutenant Grey whinnied in surprise and jerked his head back into the room so fast he smacked it on the window frame. His weapon, already drawn, eventually got in line with Lucci's chest across the length of the chalet's main room. His eyes rested for one amazed moment on Hattori, but he managed to focus on the life-and-death matter at hand rather than on feathered distractions. 

"So you found us, government dog."

"Yes. You led us a merry chase."

"Just two of you?" Grey sneered. He was a huge man, a full two heads taller than Lucci, beefy left arm swinging a cutlass as long again as his leg. "Against five of my men and _me_? Are you idiots overconfident or has the government been cutting costs again?"

"Two is more than enough, and more discreet." In the courtyard below, someone shouted in alarm. 

Grey's jowls moved like bulls fighting as he sneered. "Oh yeah, 'discreet'. I knew I was never gonna get a trial - not that I'd have stood for one, but I knew too much. They would never dare put me on the stand. They had no right to, anyway! So what if I did a bit of piracy on the side during my tour of duty in the New World? Other officers have done it before. Who the fuck cares? The government's got its own dirty little secrets. Whole islands wiped out, people disappearing, money too- and they want to hang me for a couple of burned-down villages past the Red Line?"

"No."

"Huh?"

"I am not going to kill you for your pillaging outside of the world government's jurisdiction," Lucci elaborated. "I am going to kill you for breaking rank, disobeying your orders, embarrassing our superiors, tarnishing the Navy's reputation in the eyes of the common man, digging into classified material just to find some dirt to protect yourself and, primarily, for getting caught at all of the above. I'd have killed you already without bothering to explain this to a thick-headed fool, but this is the first time I've been warm in the past forty-eight hours, so I'm in no particular hurry." Lucci nodded towards the grating where the lieutenant and his men had broken up the dusty furniture they'd found in their remote mountain hideout and set it ablaze.

Grey stared at him, undoubtedly taking a few seconds to process the words that had more than two syllables. Then he roared and shook his cutlass. "You?! You think you can kill me? I eat shrimps like you for breakfast! You _and_ your fucking pigeon! How old are you anyway, fifteen?"

"Twenty-three," Lucci answered, his estimation of Grey dropping a few more notches. Two years since he'd grown the beard, but the prey still underestimated him regularly. Lucci's youth had been an asset for years, but now it was just getting annoying.

"Do you know how many _kids_ like you I've killed?!" Grey laughed, taking a couple of steps forward. "I've been in the ranks for - hell, I entered the service the year you were born, brat! And in my time, I've-"

He was interrupted by a burst of noise from below. Shouts, swishes, thuds, and then, in the sudden quiet, an odd gurgling sound. Not odd for Lucci, who'd heard it plenty of times before.

Grey smirked. "That'll be your underling getting a few holes punched into his belly. My boys like to play."

"That'll be my partner eliminating your bodyguards and I would be very surprised if he broke a sweat." Lucci felt a cold smile lift one corner of his mouth as he decided to wait for Kaku to get here before ending this. If Grey thought Lucci was young...It was a joke, and Grey didn't get it. None of these weaklings did. Grey didn't know who they were, which was how it was supposed to be. They were the justice in the shadows, the ones who did the dirty work so that the wheels of government kept turning. They sought no recognition, no riches, no spoils, no justification either, and it was more than solitude when even those they could kill in a heartbeat did not know them enough to fear them...

And with the way Kaku was carrying on these days, it wasn't even 'them' anymore. It was a joke, but Kaku wouldn't share it with him.

It was that thought that killed Grey. He would have died anyway, but Lucci would have continued toying with him for a little while, enjoying the warmth and the fear that would soon appear in the man's eyes when he was finally persuaded to look out the window at what was left of his men. But at the thought of Kaku and his 'polite distance', something inside Lucci went _snap_ and that's what killed Grey right away instead of five minutes down the road. Killed him hard.

The _Tobu Shigan_ whistled through the air like a bullet, ripping into Grey's wrist. The cutlass fell to the floor in a splatter of blood. Grey was slammed back against the windowsill by the force of the strike, howling in pain. He twisted around to call for help. Lucci didn't know what Grey saw out the window that made him go the color of curdled milk, but he could well guess. 

When Grey turned around, Lucci was three feet away. 

"Wait! Wait! You can't! You can't just do this! I want a trial!"

"I thought you wouldn't stand for one." Lucci lifted his right hand, index finger extended. Grey stared at it without comprehension, cradling his shattered wrist to his chest.

"You can't!" Grey yelped again. "You-...You'll pay for this! You and your superiors! I have connections!"

"Then I'll be sure to find them and inform them personally of your demise."

Two Shigans, one to each shoulder. Grey was already disarmed, but that'd keep him from swinging; an old habit Lucci had had for ten years now. The third and fourth followed a split second later, above and through the heart, punching through flesh and bone. Then the reflex fifth and sixth blow - both in the throat - confirmed the kill.

The seventh, eight, ninth and tenth were just for the hell of it.

Blood spattered. The body finally fell with a limp thump. Hattori, who'd shot off Lucci's shoulder at the first sign of a fight as he'd been trained, made a worried clucking sound from where he'd perched on the fire mantel. 

"I think he's dead," said Kaku at Lucci's shoulder, glancing down - and up and across the room - at the carnage.

Lucci made a show of studying the body, then sent a short-distance rankyaku into the mess, driving shards of bone into the whitewashed wall behind it. "He is now."

"...Want me to behead him to be sure?" 

Kaku was examining the corpse, tilting his head this way and that as if trying to do a jigsaw. There was a question in the draw of breath when he glanced up, stillborn as he caught the way Lucci was looking at him, unblinking. Kaku's face became a mask, an expertly neutral expression, wariness behind it. He waited. But Lucci said nothing. 

Kaku eventually tugged at his cap until the beak almost touched his nose, and indicated the body with a jut of his chin. "Never seen you do that before. You toy with them when you've got a couple of minutes, but you stop when they're dead."

"Yes."

The silence dripped from the walls like blood.

"Are you frightened?" Lucci asked softly.

"No," Kaku answered, and looked faintly surprised at his own response. "I wouldn't be holding down this job if I could scare easily. Besides, above all you're a professional. You wouldn't damage anything that could still serve you or the cause."

"Good," said Lucci, tone soft and dead serious. "As long as you realize that above all, you have to be useful. Everything else - _everything_ \- is entirely secondary."

Kaku smiled faintly, the real smile that stayed true through battle and bloodshed. "Oh, I have always been aware of that."

"Good," Lucci repeated, then he grabbed a startled Kaku by the wrist and dragged him off towards the mess of sleeping bags their victims had left in a corner.

Kaku stumbled and tried to formulate what might have been a question. Lucci swung him without ceremony against the wall and pinned him in a kiss. The stiffness of the body beneath him reminded Lucci what this was about, though. With an internal growl that didn't make it as far as his throat, he pulled Kaku around until his lover was boxing him in against the cold plaster of the mansion wall. 

That clued Kaku in real fast, and suddenly Lucci was getting kissed with the kind of fervor that surpassed even that which had come before. Lucci let him. He even felt his blood stir, warmed by carnage and fire. It wasn't as if it would be unpleasant. The hands unfastening his buttons were nowhere near as inexperienced and rash as they'd been a year ago. Kaku had always been a fast learner, and he'd had a good teacher. 

Lucci let his partner bear him down onto one of the sleeping bags, black shirt undone, pants riding down, eased off by hands that were almost reverent. Kaku only broke away to lose his own clothes at top speed and rummage around his backpack for the bottle of lube which hadn't seen much use these past few weeks. The familiar pop of the cap was followed by an equally familiar scent before it had to surrender to the stench of blood permeating the room. And then Lucci had an armful of young and very horny colleague on top of him, kissing him, fierce and oddly clumsy as if in his hurry and eagerness he'd forgotten this past year after all, and all he'd learned with it. Lucci had a feeling this wasn't going to last long. Lube-covered fingers, trying to be careful, seized him, beating him off. Getting him into the game. Or-...

Then Kaku was on him, and- straddling him and easing himself down on Lucci's erection in hungry, hurried stages. 

Lucci's fingers knotted in flesh - whether to stop his lover or haul him down and get more of the sudden burn of tightness and pleasure, Lucci could not, in that moment of rare uncertainty, quite say.

\- though the way Kaku was lowering himself down like that, barely stretched, hard, fast and hungry. Small non-noises through parted lips, body bright in the light from the fire. It was reminding Lucci why they'd started having sex in the first place. It reminded him what sex was all about.

But if there was one thing Lucci did not like, it was being surprised. And surprised he was. One of them had missed the point of the exercise, and Lucci did not like the sneaking suspicion that it was him.

Kaku made a throaty noise of protest when Lucci's hands fastened like vices around his hips, stilling him. 

"I thought you wanted to fuck me," Lucci grated. 

"Oh but I am," snickered his partner between two short breaths as he lifted and moved down hard against the resistance of Lucci's hold and the bruises it'd leave, hands gripping black hair as he leaned down, mouth covering Lucci's in a kiss like a bite and then doing it all over again.

...He'd never actually asked Kaku what he wanted, had he...

The last flickers of surprise were getting lined up and shot. Lucci was just not one to let all control slip even for the time it'd take for his partner to get off this way. 

Kaku stiffened, powerful legs locking them into place for a breath, a small, instinctive resistance, futile. The bottom line was, Lucci was still three times stronger at last count and that was not going to change anytime soon. Lucci caught him and, with an ease that probably burned the younger man's pride a little bit, rolled him over, still deep inside him.

And then over again until Lucci could push himself up into seated position, back to the wall. Kaku gasped and squirmed as the sudden shift of position and gravity ground him down even further. Strong arms slammed into the wall on either side of Lucci's head as Kaku got his grip and balance back. Stilled, taking stock, he looked down at his partner. The grin that followed was a little sly and entirely glorious and free, and Lucci decided he didn't mind giving the presumptuous puppy half a victory after all. Kaku started moving in a way that would have to be checked against the legislature because it was probably illegal somewhere, and Lucci decided he didn't mind that at all.

But there was something he had to ask...

On the opposite wall was a splatter of blood in the rough shape of a snarling beast; Lucci stared at it, a part of him refusing to be distracted by this long-awaited pleasure. He didn't want to _ask_. But he was going to have to. He'd realized at some point in the past two months - and in the past two minutes - that it wasn't just about sex anymore, if it ever had been. But the bottom line was, Lucci would have let Kaku take what he wanted for whatever reason, and in Lucci's world, when something was given, it was used. 

"Don't you want to screw me?" he asked bluntly, trying to ignore the pleasure crawling up his skin, through his chest and around his spine. 

"Hmm, I'd love to." It was almost a groan. Kaku did something with his hips that made Lucci grip his shoulders hard enough to bruise even that steely body. But he was not to be distracted. 

"Then why aren't you-"

A rough, breathless chuckle interrupted him. "To have you lie on your back, stare at the ceiling and think of justice? Not bloody likely."

Lucci caught him by the back of the neck and crushed their mouths together before the smirk could quite manage to worm its way onto his lips. Kaku's arms were steel bars planted against the wall on either side of Lucci's head, helping him thrust down savagely, and up, and down- The heat of the fire, the heat between them, seared their skins as if the whole room had been set ablaze, and Lucci suddenly appreciated why it was termed 'consummation'. Time to burn.

 

 

Kaku was giving the ceiling a dazed look. Cooperation had produced some interesting results, as well as a few bruises, which was more than Grey and his men could lay claim to. And though no further words had been exchanged, Lucci had still managed to place the inevitable 'I may have taught you everything you know, boy, but I never taught you everything _I_ know' in there somewhere. A prelude to the moment Lucci would get his partner back to Enies Lobby and give him one of those 'workouts' Kaku seemed so fond of, just to remind him who was the stronger, and that to stake a claim of parity with Rob Lucci would imply more work, pain and strength than ever before. Kaku would know this. Hell, the crazy bastard was probably looking forward to it... 

The eyelids over those big eyes were at half-mast. "There's an extremely well-drilled carcass in the corner," said Kaku, a propos of nothing.

Lucci, lying on his side on a dead man's sleeping bag, didn't bother to glance over his shoulder to confirm this. He had good cause to know. "So?"

"So nothing...just thought I'd mention it..." The words were slurred and sleepy. 

A flutter signaled Hattori's arrival. He landed on the mess of clothes nearby and hopped about, and then made an inquisitive cooing sound. Expecting his master to get up, get dressed and leave.

Finger-painted speckles of dried blood in clumps on Kaku's skin threatened to turn him into a second leopard. Or a cheetah, rather, considering the shape of the markings and the rangy body they decorated....Or some other kind of lanky spotted beast...Lucci blinked and focused his eyes before they could close.

The sequence of events that had brought them here played through his mind like the steps of a move he was analyzing post-combat. Kaku had had the good sense - the grim, reality-driven common sense - to take into account that his strategy might fail for the simple reason that what he was trying to obtain from Lucci might not exist. He'd left their team in a state that would reflect this if it were the case, a state they could both live with and wouldn't impair them in the pursuit of their duty. It hadn't been the gamble of an over-eager and very young man, not any more. Lucci's partner had matured. More than Lucci had fully realized. It was in part his own doing, imprints of himself and his lessons as visible as the bloodied fingerprints, yet he hadn't seen it. 

And the strategy hadn't failed. Lucci wasn't entirely sure he appreciated this. His prime concern, his reason for existing, had always been to serve justice and satisfy his bloodlust, and he didn't know of a better life than that. There'd never been anything else that could even begin to hold a candle up to it before. There still wasn't, but it seemed he'd picked up something in addition to that. Something small, though; it wouldn't take up much room. A partner to rely on inasmuch as Lucci relied on anyone, a warm body in his bed, a certain grin once the mission was over and the corpses buried. Secondary. But nice to have. Even worth a few words to insure it was kept.

"Kaku?"

"...Hn?" 

Lucci touched a blood-speckled hip, felt a slight stir beneath his fingers. He'd never made this sort of confession to anyone before. But to look on the bright side - maybe the one thing Kaku had taught him in turn - Lucci was only twenty-three; it'd be a pity to have done everything, had every experience and conquered every challenge already.

"It was a good game. You played well. It was effective and beyond irritating, and if you ever do that to me again, I will gut you." 

The smile was minute, but he was close enough where he could see the tiny muscles around Kaku's mouth twitch. "I wouldn't do that to my partner."

"Right," said Lucci, and settled besides the warm body for a nap before they took the trek back to civilization.


End file.
